27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:27-38
“God is generous to all people, generous (in the eyes of the stingy) to a fault: he provides good things for all to enjoy, the undeserving as well as the deserving…Only when people discover that this is the sort of God they are dealing with will they have any chance of making this way of life their own…
In fact, this list of instructions [contained in Luke 6:27-28] is all about which God you believe in—and about the way of life that follows as a result. We must admit that large sections of Christianity down through the years seem to have known little or nothing of the God Jesus was talking about. Much that has called itself by the name of Jesus seems to have believed instead in a gloomy God, a penny-pinching God, a God whose only concern is to make life difficult, and salvation nearly impossible…
This God is different. If you lived in a society where everyone believed in this God, there wouldn’t be any violence. There wouldn’t be any revenge. There wouldn’t be any divisions of class or caste. Property and possessions wouldn’t be nearly as important as making sure your neighbor was all right. Imagine if a few people took Jesus seriously and lived like that. Life would be exuberant, different, astonishing. People would stare. And of course people did stare when Jesus did it himself…
His whole life was one of exuberant generosity, giving all he’d got to give to everyone who needed it…
There are two particularly astonishing things about these instructions [in Luke 6:27-38]. First, their simplicity: they are obvious, clear, direct, and memorable. Second, their scarcity. How many people do you know who really live like this? How many communities do you know where these guidelines are rules of life? What’s gone wrong? Has God changed? Or have we forgotten who He really is?”
Tom Wright Luke for Everyone (London: SPCK, 2001) 74-75.
I dedicate today’s meditation to my wife Jenni as today is our 21st wedding anniversary. About four years ago, I said to her:
“I think we need to repent. I think we need to turn from the cultural Christianity around us, and just try to live out the red letters of Jesus, especially the one’s we’ve been ignoring related to money. We store up treasures on earth, precisely the place He says not to store them. We don’t give to everyone who asks of us, but test them to see if they are worthy of our aid. And the Jesus I meet in the Gospels is radically more generous. And I believe He’s calling us to a new way of life.”
Her reply, much like Wright’s scarcity comment above was this:
“Who lives this way?”
Then there was a long pause pondering these things in her heart…
“Ok, let’s do it.”
We don’t have everything all figured out, but letting go of money is the best decision we ever made. As Mark 10:27-31 states, life in Jesus is 100x better than the life mammon offers, and He promises us great difficulties too, but our reward is Christ himself coupled with a host of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and provisions from His hand. Many of you who are reading this are like family to us. We are so thankful for you.
If our story pricks your heart, perhaps sit with the Lord in silence. You too may need to repent, which simply means: change directions. It may be time to abandon cultural Christianity. You too may need to cease trying to find life in what mammon promises, and experience life in Jesus. But don’t take our word for it. Consider the simplicity of the red letters, and do what Jesus says.